Former President Donald Trump with Rep. Byron Donalds (Photo: Office of Byron Donalds)
March 20, 2024 by David Silverberg
Last Saturday, March 16, Donald Trump, campaigning in Ohio, said: “Now, if I don’t get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath for the whole – that’s going to be the least of it. It's going to be a bloodbath for the country.”
Given Trump’s past encouragement of violence and his past incitement of a mob attack on the US Capitol, the resulting furor might be understandable. However, Make America Great Again (MAGA) Republicans rushed to Trump’s defense, saying that he was only referring to the auto industry.
Republican candidate Donald Trump makes his “bloodbath” statement at a rally in Ohio. (Image: YouTube)
One of the MAGA loyalists vociferously defending Trump was Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.), whose Southwest Florida district covers the coastal area from Cape Coral to Marco Island.
“FAKE NEWS ALERT,” he posted on X the next day. “Yesterday, President Trump held a rally in OH. He spoke about how outsourcing the US auto industry would create an economic bloodbath. Now media is deliberately twisting his words in an attempt to dupe the American people. This ‘bloodbath’ hoax is SHAMEFUL.”
In and of itself Donalds’ reflexive defense of Trump was unsurprising. However, another statement was, in its way, even more extreme.
On March 7, Donalds was asked in an interview with the newssite Axios whether if he served as vice president in a Trump administration he would certify the Electoral College votes in the 2028 election.
Donalds said he wouldn’t do so automatically. “If you have state officials who are violating the election law in their states ... then no, I would not,” he said, adding that “I already know” states did not follow election laws in 2020.
When asked if he agreed with then-Vice President Mike Pence’s certification of the results on Jan. 6, 2021, Donalds said “you can only ask that question of Mike Pence,” (which doesn’t answer the question, since Donalds was being asked for his opinion of Pence’s actions and had nothing to do with Pence’s opinion).
Donalds’ response raises the possibility—indeed, the likelihood—that if Trump won the presidency with Donalds as vice president, Donalds would enable a possible permanent, lifetime, unelected Trump presidency (really, a dictatorship) by tossing out Electoral votes in any election certification over which he presided.
Donalds is already on record voting to overturn the 2020 election, which he did on Jan. 6, 2021 before the Capitol was invaded by the Trump-incited mob that Donalds characterized that day as “lawless vigilantes” and “a bunch of lunatics.”
That day too, Pence certified the election results—for which action the mob attempted to lynch him.
Eyes on the rise
Donalds’ defense of a Trump “bloodbath” and his willingness to support a lifetime Trump presidency once again puts the spotlight on his longstanding quest to become Trump’s vice president.
Donalds himself has become coy about his aspirations. Last year when the idea apparently first occurred to him or he had some encouragement, he seemed especially eager. Last June he posted in a fundraising message: “…I haven’t heard nearly as much discussion about who the Republican nominee for Vice President should be. It’s critical that the nominee is another America First warrior who will stand up to the radical Left no matter what kind of witch hunts the radical Left and the Deep State throw at the ticket.” There was little doubt who he had in mind.
But in October last year when asked about a potential vice presidential slot at a Fort Myers town hall, according to a Naples Daily News article, he responded, “The speculation is out there. I’ve not talked to the president about it (but) if he goes, ‘All right, Byron, that’s what I want you to do,’ then yeah, all right let’s roll. Because you know it’s about the country.”
Nothing seems to have happened in the intervening time to indicate that Donalds is any closer to being tapped for vice president than was the case then. In fact, if anything, Donalds is further from the possibility.
But it’s worth asking, from Trump’s perspective: what would Donalds bring to a Trump ticket?
Assets
In a traditional political calculation, the vice presidential candidate is picked to balance the top of the ticket based on region, ideology, race, age or gender. Presumably, this “balance” attracts sufficient voters to make a winning majority.
Of course Donald Trump has tossed away all traditional calculations. There’s just no telling what his criteria would be for his vice presidential candidate—although the high likelihood is that it would be blind personal loyalty, subservience and a willingness to obey any command no matter how criminal, unconstitutional or even treasonous, especially given that he encouraged the attempted lynching of Pence when he refused to commit an unconstitutional act at Trump’s command.
But based on traditional calculations, the first and most obvious thing that Donalds would bring to a Trump ticket is just the fact that he is African American.
At its most basic, an African American on the ticket would shield Trump from charges of racism. It might attract the votes of a small sliver of other African Americans.
But Donalds is not the only African American willing to provide racial cover for Trump. He is competing with the much more prominent Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) who ran his own race for president, lost, and then very conspicuously endorsed the man who beat him.
The same applies to Ben Carson, who did the same thing in 2016. After his failed presidential bid he was appointed Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the administration. Carson has been actively serving as a Trump surrogate on the campaign trail.
So Donalds must stand out in some other way and the way he appears to have chosen is by ostentatiously trumpeting his total personal allegiance and loyalty to Trump on every media platform available. He has completely bought into every Trump policy and position, no matter how extreme. He has relentlessly attacked President Joe Biden and his administration, proclaimed his belief in the Big Lie of a stolen election in 2020 and was the first Florida Republican politician to endorse Trump when he announced his current run in November 2022.
Yet, for all this loud loyalty, Trump has repeatedly snubbed and ignored Donalds since he first ran for Congress in 2020. (See “The Donalds Dossier: He’s just not that into you, Byron,” Oct. 30, 2023.)
The public can only guess why Trump continues to overlook and ignore Donalds. However, there are some liabilities that might be factors.
Liabilities
The first liability is that aside from a tiny fraction of the extremely conservative congressional Freedom Caucus, Donalds has no base of his own and what there is, is tenuous as well. It appears to consist mainly of Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-3-Colo.), who appears about to lose her seat, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-14-Ga.), who was kicked out of the Freedom Caucus for being too extreme even for its members, and Rep. Chip Roy (R-21-Texas), who nominated Donalds for Speaker in January 2023.
Rep. Byron Donalds sits uncomfortably between Reps. Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene while they both heckle President Joe Biden during his State of the Union speech in 2022. (Photo: Reuters)
His support from other members of Congress is small, judging from the few PACs that contributed to his campaign in 2023. These include House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise (R-1-La.), whose Eye of the Tiger PAC contributed $5,000 to Donalds’ campaign in 2023 as well as Scalise for Congress, which contributed $2,000. Other members of Congress whose PACs have contributed include Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Reps. Jim Jordan (R-4-Ohio), Jason Smith (R-8-Mo.), Patrick McHenry (R-10-NC), John James (R-10-Mich.) and former Wisconsin congressman and current Fox News commentator Sean Duffy.
After two terms Donalds is relatively unknown to the public at large, although he’s been working hard to become more prominent. But he would bring no national following to the ticket. Voters, especially black voters, would be mystified by his presence and likely as not would recoil from what they discovered on closer examination.
Also, despite his clear and undisguised ambition, Donalds has lost every election that he’s entered among his fellow Republican members of Congress. He lost his bid to be Republican conference chair and two bids to become Speaker of the House.
He made these efforts despite having a record that did not qualify him for an office higher than the one he already occupies. He has no significant legislative successes to date, nor can he boast of any congressional achievements, either major or minor. He’s still just a sophomore lawmaker grasping for promotion to the junior class. He doesn’t stand out intellectually, influentially or politically. (It was his presumption in this regard that enraged TV host Joy Reid when she interviewed him following his first bid for the Speakership.)
There is some debate whether a vice president could come from the same state as the president but this has largely been dismissed by analysts, who believe it would be permissible. However, it would introduce a complicating factor and element of uncertainty into any campaign.
More significant would be the searing scrutiny Donalds would undergo as a vice presidential candidate—and which he might not survive. He has already admitted to a drug-related arrest as a young man but there have been previous allegations of wrongdoing that would be re-investigated with far more rigor than in the past.
His private life would become wide open, including all the circumstances of his first marriage, divorce and remarriage. Any other skeletons would tumble out of their closets as well.
In examining the totality of Donalds’ pronouncements, actions and legislation, the portrait that emerges is that of a professional politician, almost wildly driven to rise on the national stage in any venue he can find; it doesn’t matter if that’s as a vice presidential candidate, a gubernatorial candidate or a House Republican leader.
The steppingstone
For voters in the 19th Congressional District, these are abstract considerations over which they have no influence. But in practical, immediate terms, what does Donalds’ approach mean for voters in Southwest Florida, who will have to decide whether to renew his contract in November?
“We’re a stepping stone for him in his ‘illustrious’ career,” Kari Lerner, Donalds’ Democratic opponent, said in an interview with The Paradise Progressive earlier this month. “I think the people of Southwest Florida deserve more than to be a stepping stone. I think they deserve more than to be stepped upon.”
Donalds’ political rise is not going to be enabled by attending to the mundane needs of his Southwest Florida district. There, the ongoing concerns are water, development, population growth, algal blooms, the Everglades, conservation and the tourist economy with the occasional hurricane recovery thrown in—hardly sexy national issues that are springboards to higher office. As Lerner noted, for Donalds Southwest Florida is a steppingstone, not a destination.
So while he has done things like submitting earmarks for projects benefiting the district—after some intense prodding—and writing letters when his constituents were afflicted with industrial pollution, his legislative record regarding his district’s core concerns is barely existent. He has not used whatever leverage he has in the Republican House and with the Republican leadership to advance any meaningful measure improving the lives, health or prosperity of his constituents beyond simply introducing 59 bills that have almost all gone nowhere. (Only one, the FISHES Act, House Resolution 5103 has had a subcommittee hearing.)
Instead, he has pounded the media pavements at every opportunity to raise his profile, grasped at every possible opening for higher position and made sure to reaffirm his utterly blind and unquestioning loyalty to Donald Trump.
This does not rebound to the district’s benefit, especially with Gov. Ron DeSantis, on whom Donalds turned his back in favor of Trump. The governor is in a position to veto appropriations to the region or dispense any favors or assistance if needed and he’s known to keep score and retaliate.
Basically, Southwest Florida has an ambitious but distracted representative whose chief focus is on his next possible step up the political ladder rather than on the sands and substance of the district he calls home (and that just barely, since gerrymandering is the only reason his home address is in the district’s boundaries—a favor of the governor, by the way).
On Nov. 5, Donalds’ contract will be up for renewal. District voters should think long and hard whether they should vote to renew it. In a year when so many loyal, traditional, lifelong Republicans have been exiled from the Party by Donald Trump, do they really want to send back to Washington to act and speak on their behalf a fanatically subservient Trumper, a man who is willing to do whatever it takes to keep Donald Trump president for life? This might be the year they want to make a change.
Meanwhile, Donalds has pursued—and is likely to keep pursuing—offices for which he is unqualified by any record of achievement as measured by traditional political calculations and expectations. In each case he has failed to attain his goals when subjected to the judgment of his peers and political elders.
Of course, in this he is likely encouraged by the example of his idol and hero, who attained the highest office in the land despite a complete absence of qualifications, knowledge or fitness.
As he has throughout his political career in Southwest Florida, Donalds has had to square a very difficult circle: he’s an African American in an 85 percent white, heavily conservative MAGA district, where a significant strain of white racism could be expected to influence voting.
What is more, he is mightily laboring in service to a presidential candidate whose racism is blatant, undisguised and appears to extend to Donalds himself.
Donalds has overcome this contradiction by presenting himself as even more extremely Trumpist/MAGA than the most extreme MAGAs in his district and nationwide—with the possible exception of Donald Trump himself.
Clearly, Donalds’ calculation is that the purity of his belief and loyalty will be sufficient for his MAGA voters, his fellow congressional Republicans and Donald Trump himself to overcome any racial prejudice they may harbor. Put another way, they’ll accept him if he’s sufficiently useful to their cause.
The irony is that Donalds’ rise in electoral politics to this point and in this place would have been impossible without the civil rights, racial integration and African American political success of the past century, progress that Trump, MAGAs and white supremacists are trying to undo by making America “great” again.
And, of course, if Trump is elected and establishes a dictatorship, as Donalds has stated he is willing to enable, there won’t be any electoral politics any more for anyone to rise, much less African Americans of any ideological persuasion.
Joe Biden ran for president at age 76 in 2020 because he recognized that he was fighting for nothing less than the soul of America.
An unkind critic might liken Donalds’ defense of Trump’s bloodbath pronouncement and willingness to promote a Trump dictatorship to selling his own soul to gain worldly prominence and power.
The state of Donalds’ soul is up to Donalds himself, of course. But as he continues to commit his soul to Donald Trump, he might want to consider the words of Matthew 16:26 in the New Testament: “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
Liberty lives in light
© 2024 by David Silverberg